JonVisc
Enthusiast
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Registered: May 2003
Local time: 09:16 AM
Location: Schenectady
Posts: 34
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I was reading The Fabric of the Cosmos (okay, listening to the book-on-tape during my drive home...) by Briane Greene.
He was explaining how Newton thought about space and absolute-space and brought up Mach's (I believe it was Mach anyway) example about being in a void.
Nothing around just a black void, and then you started spinning. Newton explained that once you started spinning your hands would want to move away from your body. Mach didn't think that would be the case, to him it was because if there wasn't anything in space there wouldn't be anything pulling your hands away from your body, no outside gravity.
Okay, I can accept that, you need objects to influence gravity, but going a step further (and if someone has read the book, please let me know because I heard that part yesterday and haven't listened to anymore yet so they may have explained it) if there was only one sun or planet or body in space, wouldn't all gravity work on that body alone? Meaning that if you were in a void you couldn't begin to raise your arms because the force of gravity on you would be to great. Would all gravity only be working exactly from your core pulling you in on yourself? Perhaps crushing you into a single point? Which from there maybe something happens and BANG(and its a big one ;-)
Because it seems to me that the less amount of stuff in the universe, the more gravity would work on all the remaining stuff. If there was a planet the size of earth and it was the only thing in the void, ALL the gravity that should be working on everything else (earth included) is now just working on the earth? Which would be such pressure and force it couldn't do anything but shrink til it is a single point. Then since gravity doesn't have anything to work on anymore the point would be allowed to grow then?
I seem to keep getting myself into this loop of what might happen and am wondering if anyone with more knowledge knows about this and the outcome.
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08-02-2005 02:36 PM
